My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier & Christopher Collier

If you are looking for a rigorous all-in-one teacher/student literature guide, these guides are a good choice. The research-based activities include text-dependent questions, student interpretation of vocabulary words, close reading exercises, and analyzing the text through writing. Comprehension questions are available in two levels of difficulty. There are also cross curricular activity pages including a grammar and other subject activity page for every section. Unit study suggestions and possible books to dig deeper are also listed. This gives you the option to dive further into the literature with other subjects.

Each guide begins with a short author biography and a book summary. A pre-reading exercise gives students the opportunity to think about the theme outside the context of the story. Then, multiple assignments for each section of the book allow students to analyze the story elements in different ways. Some reading responses include drawing pictures or writing in the form of narrative, informative, or opinion. The close reading exercises have students reread a specific part of a chapter before answering questions so they can use textual evidence in their response. Graphic organizers are used throughout to keep the students engaged.

These literature guides are very thorough and implement different strategies to get the most out of the text. Guides require unabridged editions, but not specific editions. Questions are based on chapters and not specific pages. Student pages are reproducible for classroom use only. Post- reading activities and an answer key are included.